X-Message-Number: 14262 Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 07:26:58 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: why memories are important to identity Hi everyone! My reason for believing that memories are important is simple: if you lose all your memories, but somehow retain your awareness (something that in the end we MAY discover is impossible) then what remains may be a living human being, but to say that it is YOU extends that notion for more than it can be extended. After all, self-awareness without memories, in a human body, could basically be ANYONE. As a form of survival, this does not differ from simply producing a new human being. It does not even matter whether or not this human being inhabits a body which looks like yours: what keeps someone else from being revived in that body? The question becomes more pertinent if we suppose a PARTIAL survival of memories. Then you may well remember that you are Dave Pizer, but forget lots of your history. The difference is that you still have memories, can learn others, and basically know who you were. I won't discuss here just which memories can survive to make you know you were Dave Pizer, mainly because they may differ with person. I will also bring up here some points about the organization of our brains. It may well be that our sense of identity involves lower centers (ie. not the cortex) in an essential way, and that noncortical area plays a central role. Yet it's likely also to have to react with our cortex to produce a sense of identity (in terms relating to this argument, it must react with our memories, stored in our cortex or our cerebellum). That noncortical part of our sense of identity may even be removable: if you lose it on your suspension, then replacing it may be easy. Replacing your memories would be much harder. Best and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14262